Marion
Hammel has enjoyed a lifetime of art as an illustrator, instructor and
painter.

She grew up in Pittsburgh during the depression years and recalls that
Pittsburgh was then known as the "smokey city". She remembers seeing at
night the red glow against the sky from the steel mills.

During the school year her family lived in Pittsburgh, and spent summers
on Oneida Lake near Syracuse, NY.

One day a friend from junior high school invited Marion to come with her
to the art class she attended at Carnegie Tech's Saturday morning classes
for children. Marion recalls, "From then on I knew this was the world
I wanted to spend my life in."

Following graduation from Syracuse University's College of Fine Arts,
Marion became one of the two original staff artists for the just beginning
children's magazine, Highlights for Children.

After seven years as a staff artist, she left to work independently as
a freelance contributor, illustrating the feature page Goofus and Gallant
for 25 additional years.

Along the way, Marion has painted a mural for the Huntington Club Children's
Center in Syracuse, NY, illustrated a series of books for the former Iroquois
Publishing Company in Syracuse, and also illustrated individual books,
most recently one titled The Happy Way for Elizabeth Cornette.

Marion is represented by Elizabeth Cornette's prestigious Canyon Art
Gallery in Canyon, Texas. Her paintings can be found in homes in New
York, Conneticut, Ohio, Virginia and Texas.

Shown on this site are some of her favorite paintings in watercolor and
oil which are now making their debut in print form. Hope you like them.

Dr. Garry Myers, founder and editor of Highlights
for Children, children's magazine, created the "Goofus and Gallant"
feature page for the magazine in 1951. Marion drew the characters for
him for 32 years. Pictured below are three of the "Goofus and Gallant"
features.

This was the original Goofus and Gallant
page...

Another of the Goofus and Gallant features
as it developed over the years...